DJ Page Hodel's hearts gathered into new book

PROFILE

Patricia Yollin, Special to The Chronicle

Published
4:00 am PST, Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Page Hodel puts the last paper white flowers on her heart as she is joined by her cat Wili. Page Hodel works on a new heart creation Sunday January 31, 2010 at her Oakland, Calif. home. Page Hodel, described by Billboard magazine as one of the nations best DJ's, has a new book dedicated to her late partner with photographs of hearts fashioned out of various ingredients. less

Page Hodel puts the last paper white flowers on her heart as she is joined by her cat Wili. Page Hodel works on a new heart creation Sunday January 31, 2010 at her Oakland, Calif. home. Page Hodel, described by ... more

Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle

Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle

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Page Hodel puts the last paper white flowers on her heart as she is joined by her cat Wili. Page Hodel works on a new heart creation Sunday January 31, 2010 at her Oakland, Calif. home. Page Hodel, described by Billboard magazine as one of the nations best DJ's, has a new book dedicated to her late partner with photographs of hearts fashioned out of various ingredients. less

Page Hodel puts the last paper white flowers on her heart as she is joined by her cat Wili. Page Hodel works on a new heart creation Sunday January 31, 2010 at her Oakland, Calif. home. Page Hodel, described by ... more

Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle

DJ Page Hodel's hearts gathered into new book

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Anyone who believes that love at first sight occurs only in Greek myths or Hollywood movies should talk to Page Hodel.

"It happened instantly," said the 53-year-old disc jockey, describing her initial encounter with Madalene Louise Rodriguez, who lived across the street. "She opened her door and it was, 'Oh, my God.' It's like you drive down Van Ness and it's all green lights. When you meet the person you look for all your life, it's really magical."

That magic has been captured in Hodel's new book, "Monday Hearts for Madalene." It is dedicated to Rodriguez, who died at 46 of ovarian cancer on June 20, 2006, only 11 months after the two fell in love.

The book contains photographs of 100 hearts Hodel made to honor Rodriguez. They are whimsical and ingenious, combining colors and objects in unexpected ways. There are key tags and cocktail umbrellas. Habanero peppers and raspberries on granite. Green onions, acacia flowers and kumquats. Clothespins, thread spools and corks.

Hodel used bougainvillea and roses for her first heart, building it on the doorstep of her beloved around 3 a.m.

"I started doing it every Sunday night, so that when she woke up on Monday morning there'd be a heart for her," Hodel said. "Right before she died, she let me know how much she loved them. And I promised to keep doing it. I told her this love was never going to die."

Instead, it is growing in ways Hodel didn't anticipate. She began e-mailing pictures to friends and relatives. Word spread, and now more than 500 people receive an e-mailed heart every Monday morning. Then a literary agent asked her to do a book.

"I said no," Hodel recalled. "I was so overwhelmed. It was way too raw and emotional and private."

A year passed. She kept hearing from her heart recipients, who told stories that touched her deeply.

"My love for Madalene was bringing comfort to people I didn't know," she said. "I thought maybe I should put the hearts out there in a bigger way."

It couldn't be more fitting, said Betty Sullivan, an event promoter and creator of Betty's List, an e-mail and information service for gay people in the Bay Area.

"When I hear Page Hodel's name, I am hearing decades of music and dancing and community coming together," Sullivan said. "She is a conduit and a connector who helps us find each other."

The hearts take from 10 minutes to 60 hours to make. They are not meant to be preserved. They simply "reside," as Hodel put it, at her home in Oakland's Laurel district until the flower petals wither or the other materials get stashed away.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, her kitchen was full of heart paraphernalia, including red roses, silver leaves, orange paper clips and hair ties - along with Romanian stamps marking her Gypsy roots. It was cozy and quiet, far removed from the morning's hip-hop blare in San Francisco, where she spins music at Lime restaurant's weekend brunch.

"Usually, the only noise I want to hear at home is a crackling fire," Hodel said.

She grew up in the Marin County town of Ross. After graduating from high school, she studied music in Paris. Later, she created the Box and Club Q, two dance spots, and was a DJ at Amelia's, the Oasis, City Nights, gay pride weekends, and on radio stations KSOL, KMEL and Live 105. She now works at Rhythmic Concepts, an East Bay nonprofit that produces music programs.

"Music was just in my blood," said Hodel, who was named one of the best disc jockeys in the country by Billboard magazine. "I was always tapping and clanging on things."

She also has been a bicycle messenger, guitarist and underground cable splicer for the phone company. A skilled carpenter, she has renovated large vehicles, including a 40-foot International Harvester school bus, and transformed an "indescribably distressed" former crack house into her current abode. She never considered herself an artist - but her friends think otherwise.

"Everything she touches she brings to life," said Gia Giasullo, who designed the book and has known Hodel 22 years. "And what is that if not art?"

Susan Schindler, founder and former owner of BrainWash cafe and laundry in San Francisco, said, "If you go out with her, a zillion people know her in a restaurant or club. And look what went on with Madalene, from an individual love to spreading it around the world. These hearts have created so much healing and joy and hope and inspiration."

Part of the proceeds from each book, published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, as well as a set of note cards, will benefit the Women's Cancer Resource Center in Oakland.

Hodel said her heart is so full of love for Rodriguez - a librarian and fused-glass artist she described as warm, kind, passionate, funny, gentle and smart - that she'd have to make 50 billion hearts to express all of it.

"Madalene opened my heart for the first time in my life," Hodel said. "And when she died, I kept asking myself: 'Why, why, why did she have to leave so soon?' I finally realized that, if we look deep inside, everything ends. We have to recognize that it's the most natural thing we do. We come and we go."

To learn more about Page Hodel's project or to join her e-mail list to get a heart, go to mondayheartsformadalene.com. A book party and art exhibition will be held 7-9 p.m. March 27 at the Women's Cancer Resource Center, 5741 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. (510) 601-4040, Ext. 111.